NDP MP Niki Ashton needs to pay back taxpayers
NDP MP Niki Ashton needs to pay the money back. She has taken not one but at least two family vacations in the last two years and made taxpayers pay for them both.
It's outrageous. It's an abuse and a breach of trust. Struggling Canadians can scarcely afford food, thanks to the NDP-Liberal government's inflationary taxes and spending, and Tricky Niki was charging all of us for her family's vacation and food.
Go to PayTheMoneyBack.com and send this expense abuser a message that taking advantage of taxpayers is unacceptable.
Here are the details uncovered by the CBC:
Back in 2022, on Dec 21, Ashton flew from Thompson, Man., to Ottawa apparently for official parliamentary business. But the House of Commons broke for Christmas on December 16 — five days earlier. The cost of the trip was $17,500.
On the trip, Ashton brought her partner, Bruce Moncur, a former NDP nomination candidate, and their two children. On Christmas Day, the family went to Quebec City. Ashton billed taxpayers for some of those expenses.
And the audacity of this woman. She didn't even try to hide it.
Social media posts show Moncur and the kids enjoying Quebec City, including an ice slide and snow tubing at Valcartier. Ashton is also seen in those posts skating with her children and visiting the city's German Christmas Market.
Records show Ashton was only in Ottawa once for four days during the fall 2022 sitting.
And that's understandable. Her riding is far-flung, and getting to Ottawa from there is difficult. Except for the tiny fact that she couldn't manage to go to Ottawa for work, but she went for family fun time.
But it gets worse. This NDP MP attacks large grocery chains for what these anti-capitalists say is price gouging, but Ashton dinged the taxpayer $1,512.83 for her meals on the Christmas vacation to Ottawa and Quebec.
Nutrition North is supposed to make grocery prices affordable for Northerners, but under the Liberals, it's going to line the pockets of a wealthy CEO.
— Niki Ashton (@nikiashton) April 4, 2024
If the Minister wouldn't tolerate paying that much for groceries, why should northerners? pic.twitter.com/u3uUE4NzqK
This isn't the first time Tricky Niki has done this.
She billed nearly $10,000 for a six-day trip to Windsor in May 2023.
Ashton, Moncur, and the kids went to Windsor, Ont., where Moncur grew up and attended school and university.
As the CBC report notes, “Travel records suggest she was physically in the nation's capital for fewer than 30 days—including some weekends—over the first six months of 2023. However, she could visit her partner's hometown in Windsor and cross the border to Detroit to meet with Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Talib.”
Ashton never thought she would have to answer for these trips.
Her excuse for the Ottawa-Quebec family vacation? She says she went "to discuss language priorities" and to "find out things she needs to prioritize." Ashton also "met with a union person," but who that person is, is a mystery.
And for the Windsor-Detroit trip to her hubby's hometown and to hang with the squad? She met with people associated with a "soccer recreation centre" to learn about "federal funding to create some soccer opportunities in northern Manitoba for Indigenous folks."
This isn't Ashton's first brush with travel hypocrisy, either, and the previous incident was unrelated to her expenses.
In the summer of 2021, while one of the strongest proponents of travel restrictions and lockdowns in the House of Commons, Niki Ashton took two trips to Greece to visit her ailing grandmother.
Your grandma had to be alone. But not hers.
Backbenchers — or members of Parliament who are neither cabinet ministers nor opposition party leaders — received $203,100 this year, up $8,500 from $194,600 in 2023. She can pay her own way.
Niki Ashton has got to go. Her champagne socialist hypocrisy knows no bounds. But before she disappears into well-deserved obscurity, she needs to pay this money back.
Canadians are being crushed under the weight of this NDP-Liberal government. Many can't dream of the family fun times Ashton had the gall to bill taxpayers for.
Go to PayTheMoneyBack.com to sign the petition.
And remember, that's Niki with one K because she hasn't figured out how to bill the Canadian taxpayer for the second one yet. We can't count on her leader, Jagmeet Singh, to hold her accountable, so let's see if she has any shame left and ask her to do the right thing for once in her career.
Sheila Gunn Reid
Chief Reporter
Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.